MFA Thesis Exhibition

The two events I'd originally wanted to attend for my final blog post became infeasible: Akutagawa Prize winner Wataya Risa's visit was cancelled, and I had to go pick up a visa in SF instead of attending the Nemerov lecture at the Cantor Arts Center. So I decided to take a look instead at the MFA Thesis exhibition, whose poster I kept seeing right outside lecture the past couple weeks. I also went because I heard that there would be a speech delivered by a fake Condoleezza Rice. I thought it would be cool to see what graduate students, whom I never really see or hear about, are producing on this campus.

There are five artists being exhibited in the gallery, the entire graduating class of MFA students at Stanford: Ben Bigelow, Chris Duncan, Dawn Weleski, Terry Powers, and Greg Stimac. Combined, the artists use a wide range of media that communicate their messages across many senses: video, cast material, perfomance, sound. In the vestibule, there are Chris Duncan’s hanging castings of cymbals and the tools required to cast, along with mirrored images of the sun and pairings of real objects and their castings. In the main space, a video installation plays in a temporary room with a blue grid image screened onto the walls, Powers’ paintings and Stimac’s photos hang on the wall, and Weleski’s videos and podium are located in the back of the room. The works are engaging and modern without being pretentious.

I noticed a thread of deception, an overall feeling of being intentionally misled, in the artists’ works. Duncan’s pieces made objects that copied other objects in form but not essence: the castings were of the negative space left behind by cymbals, leaving us with shapes whose purpose was intricately tied to music but themselves were incapable of producing sound. The sculpture in the corner of the room was also a casting, appearing to be shoes but was something else entirely. Welenski’s works, with their fake Condi, hit most upon the theme and tied in notions of political deception not elsewhere present in the exhibit.

I should describe the Condi pieces in a bit more detail, as they were the highlight of the showing for me. After being denied in her request to audit Condoleezza Rice’s class at Stanford, Welenski hired an actor to impersonate Condi and filmed the impersonator pretending to be her as she walked around campus speaking to individuals and taught a class to local eighth graders. On top of one of the screens, however, was this message: 

Unfortunately and obviously, the mock speech was cancelled. The script is on display, containing lines like “I am one hell of a motherfucker” and “I apologize for causing identity confusion in the hearts and minds of Muslim-American youth, and for making them feel apologetic for the blood on my hands.” That would have been fun to watch.

All in all, I would recommend taking a peek: the gallery is quite small and you can see everything in less than 15-20 minutes or spend up to an hour if you finish The Grid, a 35-minute video installation by Ben Bigelow. I think the exhibit’s open until the 16^th of June, so stop by if you feel so inclined.